These newly indexed genealogy resources can help you trace your family tree but also help you understand more fully the lives of your ancestors. The new section of the website, ‘Mental Health Institutions in Scotland’, is designed to help you locate each Scottish mental health institution and its records as well as learn about the history of mental health care in Scotland.

Emma Maxwell (shown above), Genealogist at www.scottishindexes.com and secretary of the Scottish Genealogy Network, will be giving a talk ‘Understanding Our Ancestors – A Look at Prison Registers and Mental Health Records’ at the SAFHS conference. Emma says, “Mental Health is all too often misunderstood, even today. It is our hope that by shining a light on these records people can understand their ancestors better.”

He has been involved in genealogy for more than 35 years. He
has worked in the computer industry for more than 40 years in hardware,
software, and managerial positions. By the early 1970s, Dick was already
using a mainframe computer to enter his family data on punch cards. He
built his first home computer in 1980.